“And you said the Reine de la Mer has .50s, and probably twenty-millimeter Bofors. All you’re going to do is make a goddamned target out of us.”
That thought, Lieutenant Pelosi, has run through my mind once or twice.
“Us?” Clete asked.
“I figured I’d be working the machine gun,” Tony said.
Actually, I was thinking Enrico would.
Clete said that aloud: “Tony, I thought I’d take Enrico with me. I haven’t figured out how to mount a machine gun in the Beechcraft. The .30 Browning may not work. We may have to use a BAR”—a Browning Automatic Rifle, a fully automatic shoulder weapon. “Enrico’s a BAR expert; they’ve had in them in the Argentinean Army for years.”
“And what am I supposed to do,” Tony asked indignantly, “sit around somewhere with my thumb up my ass while you’re off in the airplane?”
“I was thinking you could back up Dave,” Clete said, aware that it was a lame reply. “You were going to tell me what you were thinking, Tony.”
“Why do we have to fuck around making the ship illuminate herself? Why don’t we illuminate the sonofabitch ourselves?”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But I figured I’d ask the Chief here. Maybe they’ve got something like an illuminating round.”
“How would we fire it?” Clete asked. “You need a cannon to fire an illuminating round.”
“We have Very pistols,” Chief Schultz said, turning from the table to join the conversation. Clete was surprised. He’d thought Schultz was deep in technical conversation with Ettinger.
“They’re signaling devices,” Clete argued. “Flares. The submarine’ll need more than that kind of light.”
“The five-inch rifles have an illuminating round,” Chief Schultz said.
“How does it work?” Tony asked.
“Time fuse. You set it. You fire the round. So many seconds later, a charge in the projectile detonates, shattering the shell casing. That releases the flare, which is on a parachute. I don’t know if the timing fuse sets off the magnesium, or what.”
“Can you take one of the rounds apart?” Tony asked. “Just get me the parachute and the magnesium flare?”
“I don’t see why not,” Chief Schultz said. “But you would need something to light the magnesium. You’re thinking of throwing it out of the airplane?”
Tony nodded.
“You’d have to figure out some way to ignite the magnesium,” Chief Schultz said. “Some kind of a detonator. And it would be touchy. If a magnesium flare went off inside the airplane, you’d really be in the deep shit.”
“I know about detonators,” Tony said. “What I need to know is whether the temperature and duration of burn of the detonators I have would be enough to set off the magnesium. Or maybe I could somehow rig the Navy detonator, the one inside the shell…or maybe set that off with one of my detonators.”
“When I finish with Dave here,” Chief Schultz said, “coming up with a list of what we need for the transmitter site, I’m going back aboard the Thomas. I could ask the Chief Ordnanceman.”
“It would be better if Tony talked to him, Chief,” Clete said. He looked at Enrico and switched to Spanish. “Without the clowns knowing of it, we’ll either have to take el Teniente Pelosi onto and then off the American destroyer, or bring one of Chief Schultz’s friends from the destroyer here and then back to the destroyer. Can you do that?”
“Sí, mi Teniente.”
[FIVE]
Centro Naval
Avenida Florida y Avenida Córdoba
Buenos Aires
1415 26 December 1942